Greater New Orleans

Bryan Lee, accompanied by his wife/manager, Bethany, autographs a CD for a fan at The Saloon on Bourbon Street in February 2011. Since the Saloon shut down last year, Lee has been unable to find a steady gig in New Orleans, so is moving to Pensacola.
(Photo by Kerry Maloney / The Times-Picayune)

For three decades, electric blues guitarist Bryan Lee ranked among Bourbon Street’s prime musical attractions. But the Bryan Lee era on Bourbon Street, and in New Orleans, has drawn to a close.

The Saloon, the club in the 100 block of Bourbon that was the most recent home of Lee’s Blues Power Trio, shut down last year to make way for the relocated Hard Rock Café. Since then, he’s been unable to find another steady gig in New Orleans.

Lee and his wife/manager, Bethany, were in Pensacola, Fla., this week, scouting apartments. They plan to make the Florida Panhandle their new base of operations.

And so Lee’s 70th birthday celebrations at two local clubs this weekend – he plays a 7 p.m. set Friday, March 15 at Gattuso’s in Gretna, followed by a Saturday, March 16 show at the Rivershack Tavern – are also a farewell.

“It hurts, but there’s no base of operation in New Orleans any more,” Lee said Thursday. “Maybe the Good Lord wanted me to move on.”

A Wisconsin native, he first arrived in New Orleans in the early 1980s. From 1983 to 1997, he and his Jump Street Five were the house band at the Old Absinthe Bar. He specialized in a searing, Chicago-style brand of electric blues, wailing away on standards and original compositions on his trademark flying-V guitar.

Fans from all over the world discovered him on Bourbon Street and sought him out on subsequent trips to New Orleans. He released a steady stream of albums, and performed each year at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

One night in 1990, Lee allowed a scrawny blonde kid from Shreveport to sit in with the band. That was the first-ever nightclub performance by Kenny Wayne Shepherd, now a platinum-selling blues-rock star. In 2011, Lee received his first and only Grammy nomination for his contributions to Shepherd’s “Live! In Chicago” CD.

After the Old Absinthe Bar shut down in 1997, Lee moved on to other clubs. He occasionally swore off Bourbon Street, only to return. In 2009, he and his Blues Power Trio became the featured act at The Saloon.

Traditionally, he maintained his Bourbon Street residency in fall, winter and spring, and spent summers on tour. Between the two, he managed to eke out a modest living.

Bourbon Street was grueling work. Five nights a week at the Saloon, the Blues Power Trio logged a two-hour first set, a 90-minute second set, and an hour-long final set.

Lee said the club paid he and his three bandmembers $25 an hour per man, which worked out to about $125 apiece per night. They also collected tips, and Lee made extra money by selling CDs and other merchandise.

BRYAN LEE'S 70th BIRTHDAY PARTY

What: A two-night celebration of the longtime Bourbon Street blues guitarist’s 70th birthday, as well as a farewell before his move to Florida.

In April 2012, he learned that The Saloon, as well as the adjacent Howl at the Moon piano bar, would soon close to become the new home of the Hard Rock Cafe. There was talk of The Saloon’s owners possibly opening another venue at a different location, Lee said, but that didn’t pan out.

As a result, he hasn’t performed on Bourbon Street since a couple of one-off gigs at other clubs shortly after The Saloon’s closing.

Without that steady income, the guitarist fell on hard times. He could no longer afford the $1,000 monthly rent on his house in Metairie. At one point, he said, he and his wife were essentially living out of their car.

A friend eventually offered the use of a vacant house in Zachary, which is where Lee and his wife have lived since November.

But Zachary is not a convenient jumping-off point for tours. Pensacola is better suited geographically. From the Florida Panhandle to Key West, the state abounds in clubs and festivals that feature blues music. The fertile touring grounds of the East Coast are also readily accessible.

“I love playing in Florida,” Lee said. “It’s good strategically. Two-thirds of what I’m going to do will be here in Florida. Plus it’s not run over by people. I can disappear here.”

On the eve of his 70th birthday on Saturday, Lee says he is feeling better and stronger than he has in years. He had successful back surgery in January 2012. He’s taking medication to regulate a misdiagnosed heart issue. He was recently outfitted with a bilevel positive airway pressure, or BPAP, apparatus, to aid breathing while he sleeps; his breathing had never fully recovered from a ruptured diaphragm suffered in a 1993 fall down a staircase.

And Pensacola, he notes, is little more than a three-hour drive from New Orleans. “I will always love New Orleans,” Lee said. “When I moved to New Orleans, I got the best musical education any guy could get.

“New Orleans will always be my home. I’ve moved to suburbia, three hours away.”

Music writer Keith Spera can be reached at kspera@nola.com or 504.826.3470. Follow him on Twitter at KeithSpera.